Star Fruit
by Clue Longbranch
Summary: Sora, Riku, and Kairi have finally returned to the island after their long time apart traveling across worlds. But Sora begins to think Riku might be drifting away, and he desperately searched for a way to keep him close by.


The sun-baked wood creaked in the gentle breeze, sunlight spilling down through the cracks as I crouched on the small crate, staring down at the fruit I held tightly in my hands. Laughter echoed from the beach, laughter that I used to be a part of. But lately I had been holing myself up in this tiny little shack staring at the palm-sized fruit that I had hidden beneath a pile of cloth and ropes. It had been over a year since I had last seen such a piece of fruit, and it brought back memories that had once been ripped from my mind.

Three weeks had passed since Riku, Kairi, and I had returned together to our home on Destiny Islands, but many things had changed for all of us in the past year. Kairi still seemed comfortable and perfectly at home, having been living on the island for the majority of our time apart, but Riku and I had been struggling to remember everything, taking our time settling back down onto the island and rediscovering the places we used to love. Often we would be found sitting around on the docks or high on the wooden structures of the island, remembering the friends we'd made on worlds far away and all the darkness they'd come against, that couldn't be found here on this peaceful island.

It wasn't just our view of the island. Other aspects of ourselves had changed. Riku had become more distant. Still smiling, still our friend and still his cocky self, but we would see him less and less as the days went by, and I found that I seemed to care more and more. Which led me to sit here with this fruit, pondering what to do.

My heart had come to hurt when I arrived home without having seen Riku for the day, and I didn't want him to drift away from me. For over a year I had searched for him, had to suffer through seeing him consumed by the darkness, and somehow managed to get him back to me. Together we had defeated Organization XIII, the very last remnant of a powerful force. We had been friends for as long as I could remember. How long until our bonds were broken, if I were to let this constant drifting continue until Riku was gone forever?

"Are you being a lazy bum again?" came a light-hearted voice, making me jump from the crate. Quickly I stuffed the fruit behind my back as an auburn-haired girl slipped inside the door to the shack with a wide smile on her face.

"K-Kairi!" I exclaimed, trying to force one of my usual smiles. "What's up?"

"Donald and Goofy had to leave again to check up at the castle for repairs on the Gummi Ship. They seemed sad you weren't around to send them off." She cocked her head slightly, peering at my face and taking a small step forward. "Something bothering you, Sora?"

"No," I replied quickly, standing from the crate and scratching the back of my head. "Just thinking a little too much, I guess."

"Well, don't spend too much time fooling around," she said, her smile a little nervous. "You'll waste those perfectly good brain cells of yours."

"Yeah…" My voice trailed off, unable to find anything cheerful left to say. Kairi seemed to sense this and reached out, ruffling the crown of spikes on my head.

"I think I know what's bothering you," Kairi said, putting her hands on my shoulder. "And I know it's hard to go from moving around so much to being right back where you were…but all your friends are here, right? There's me, and Riku's here, too. Even Selphie and the others have come to play again, and Donald and Goofy hang around a lot. We're all here, so you don't have to worry about anything. Right?"

She was totally off the mark. But I couldn't let her know that, so I smiled once more and pulled her into my arms for a hug, breathing in the scent of ocean and sand on her hair. As much as I was worried about Riku, it did help to have these small moments that let me know there were some important things in life that had finally settled down. But as I release Kairi and she waved, hopping up the stairs towards the small rock of land just offshore, I couldn't feel reassured. My eyes found a corner of the star fruit peeking out from behind the crate, and I really did wonder. If I connected our fates with such a simple piece of food, would he really come back?

I sat alone on the curved palm tree, staring out into the sunset. Kairi had already left for home in her boat and Selphie and the other were long gone. Riku hadn't revealed himself to anyone yet today, and the heavy feeling in my gut had come back. I had only seen one glimpse of him yesterday, and he had been disappearing into the small cavern where I had first met Ansem so long ago. For a moment I had rushed to the shack and grabbed the star fruit, debating whether to actually approach Riku with it or not. But by the time I had emerged and checked out the low-ceilinged cavern, Riku had already vanished. I couldn't even guess where he would show up next anymore.

As much as I tried not to think about it too much, like Kairi had told me, I couldn't help but reminisce as I stared out onto the sunset, sighing. It really had been so long since being home, and in a way I had missed being together with my friends like the old times. But I couldn't help but wish that all my friends could be here. It was selfish, and I knew it was a wish never meant to be fulfilled. Wishes were dreams, and I was well aware that dreams were flimsy and not always meant to be seen through.

"Brings back good memories, huh?"

Another sigh escaped me as Riku came forward and leaned against the tree, folding his arms and bringing out the muscles along his arms.

"I have a lot of good memories," I sighed, leaning back along the trunk and folding my arms behind my head. "But why does it seem like so many of them…aren't from here?"

"We've been a lot of places, Sora," Riku said, and I could feel his gaze on me. "Whether good memories or bad, we were bound to collect quite a few. Maybe it was exciting meeting new people and discovering different worlds. I know since the beginning, it had always been my dream to leave this island and go on an adventure with you and Kairi. But we've always been connected, you know? At one point or another we were bound to come back here, even if it happened to be years later. Even if we drifted apart and didn't see each other and we grew up apart, some way or another we would find each other again. You know we would, Sora. You're the one that brought us together."

I wasn't sure how to reply anymore. Just seeing Riku had turned my roiling stomach to one full of butterflies and turned my thoughts to those of the star fruit beneath the crate in the shack. Having him speak to me in such a way after having barely spoken in the past three weeks, it was making it hard for anything in my mind to work straight.

"How's Kairi been?" he asked, realizing I wanted the subject to be dropped.

"Well…still Kairi, I suppose," I said with a little shrug, staring out towards the gleaming water once more. High above the sky was beginning to darken, and already a few pinpricks of the light of far off worlds were beginning to show through the haze.

"What I mean is," Riku went on, "has she changed at all?"

I had to ponder for a moment, but my answer didn't take long to formulate: "No."

Riku made a short noise, that almost sounded as if he disapproved of my answer. I lifted up from where I lay, placing my hands on the trunk and leaning forward to look at Riku and momentarily having my mind stutter as I saw the way the sunlight glanced off his silver hair and set the curves of his toned body into deep shadows, accenting every single one. As quickly as I could I shook off the thoughts that flitted into my mind and set my focus.

"What was that for?" I inquired, making sure my gaze didn't trail off from his face.

"What was what?" Riku said, as though nothing had happened. He still hadn't looked away from the fading sunset.

"You…didn't seem like my answer pleased you."

"Pleased me?" He chuckled, and finally looked at me from out of the corner of his eye. "If anything, don't you think the fact that Kairi's still the same happy, loving girl she's always been…don't you think that would make me _happy? _Why _wouldn't _I be pleased?"

Something about his words seemed extremely forced and sarcastic, and my breath caught in my throat for a moment. If anything, he seemed angry. But what could I do to make him happier? Try to cheer him up? Tell him that everything was just fine, that he himself had said so? Give him a hug? Just…what?

"Is something…else bothering you?" I asked lightly, trying not to press forward too hard and receive more sarcastic blather.

Riku heaved a sigh, his shoulders falling slightly. He turned his face from me and tightened the posture of his arms. For a moment I feared I had done exactly what I hadn't been trying to do, but a moment later he responded to my question.

"Yeah, I guess you could say it's been bothering me," he said, his voice sounding strained. "I mean, here I am wandering around and I can't find my best friend anywhere. He holes himself up in a shack for hours and never tries to approach me when I'm around. Sometimes he looks like he's about to cry when I do see him, and our meetings have never been long in the past few weeks. I've just gotten him back, and it seems like we're already further away than we were before returning to the island. Even more so than when the darkness conquered my heart, I'm sad. I'm angry. I want him back, because he's my friend. But I don't know how to get him back if I can never find him."

My chest ached with the breath I'd been holding in, but it was so difficult to imagine releasing it now. Everything he had said rammed into my heart and made it hurt, and I almost felt like crying. I hadn't been the only lonely one? Or…was it that…I had made myself lonely? And therefore, I had made Riku lonely. Was he telling me that I was the cause of the pain we both held? Was he trying to tell me…he wanted me back, as much as I wanted him back?

"Sora, I don't know what's happened or what's gotten into you, but you need to stop running away from whatever it is you're trying to avoid." Riku finally turned to face me fully, unhitching himself from the tree trunk and letting his arms drop down to his sides. "Is it me?" he said quietly, staring directly at me with an unwavering visage. But there in his eyes, I could see the turmoil he held, the tears that he had been holding back for days, maybe weeks.

"No!" I immediately answered, jumping down from the tree and taking a step towards Riku. "No, it's not…I mean, I just…I thought that maybe…you…didn't want…to…see me…anymore. You were always disappearing and I couldn't find you, and I thought maybe you didn't want to be here anymore. I thought you were going to try and run away again, but by yourself. I thought you didn't want me or Kairi anymore—"

"And what kind of an idiotic idea is _that?_"

"Huh?"

Riku had suddenly turned angry, and he took the last step between us, clamping his hands down on my shoulders and shaking them roughly. My whole body tensed and one of the many tears I had been holding back rolled down my face finally. Riku saw it trail down my cheek, and I wanted to run away, I wanted to hole myself back into my shack and hide from his face, but all I could managed was to lift up my hands before my face and hope he didn't see how upset I was.

Of course, Riku didn't settle for any of that. Before I could even raise my hands high enough to cover my eyes he had grabbed my wrists and brought them down to my sides, holding them firmly there so I couldn't run away.

"You brought me back here, Sora," Riku hissed, making me realize suddenly that he had grown nearly half a head taller than I. "Do you really think I would disgrace that favor you've done to me by running away as soon as I'm home? Sora, do you really think I would leave you after all you've done for me, all the good you've made me realize is inside of me? Sora, look at me! Please, just look at me, and tell me you really think that I want to leave you."

It felt as though we stood there for hours, Riku's gaze boring into my forehead as I stared intently at the ground, desperately trying to organize the thoughts that were being torn apart just by being so close to Riku's warmth. But he wasn't going to let me go, and at one point or another, I was eventually going to have to look up.

"I don't know what you think," I whispered, causing his grip on me to tighten a fraction, "but does it matter, as long as you know that I want you to stay? That it's been painful for me, too. And…I don't want you to leave me again. I want you to be here with me forever. Riku, I…I…I l-love…you."

His grip released just barely, but only enough that he could pull my arms around him in a hug, only to release them and wrap his own arms around me. All of his warmth surrounded me. Against my cheek, which was pressed to his chest, I could feel his fluttering heartbeat. It was going nearly as quickly as my own. At my confession I had expected to maybe comfort me a little, assure that we could just be friends still, and the walk away. Either that or he would just leave. But I hadn't expected him to accept me so fully. Let alone hug me.

"And I thought I was the only one," he chuckled, holding me tighter and burying his face in my hair. My heart skipped a beat at his words, and finally I released my arms from their stiff posture hovering just above his back. I held him, too, squeezing him against me, all the time feeling like I couldn't be close enough to him.

"I love you," Riku murmured against my scalp, making it tingle. The hairs on the back of my neck stood straight up as he pulled slightly away from me, taking my chin in one hand. He tipped my head up, dipping his downwards until our noses slid past each other. My breath held in my throat, and a sudden thought occurred to me.

"Wait," I muttered, pushing against his chest lightly.

He seemed to take the message different and he completely let go of me, muttering a quick apology and looking slightly ashamed. The blush on his face made me smile.

"No, it's not that," I said with a small laugh, taking Riku's hand in mine and leading him towards the dock back to the main island. "There's something I want to give you first."

"What is it?" he inquired, moving forward so he could walk beside me and slipping his fingers more firmly between mine.

"A surprise," I told him, pushing through the wooden door at the end of the long dock. We stumbled our way down the creaky stairs and arrived inside the small shack, the same crate shoved in the corner with a small pile of ropes and cloth beside it. Releasing his hand for a moment, I hurried over to the crate and dug around beneath the ropes until I found a small corner of the yellow fruit. I pulled it out, keeping my back to Riku so he wouldn't see it right away.

When I finally turned around, I found that Riku was leaning against the entrance to the stairway, smiling at me. His eyes landed on the star fruit in my hands and that smile just grew wider. He chuckled and moved over to me, taking my hands in his as he stared at the fruit.

"You remember the story you told me," I said, my voice wavering a touch. "It connects two people through fate. They'll never lose each other, and if they do, they'll always find their way back. A long time ago I wanted to give one to Kairi. But…I feel that—"

"Sora," Riku interrupted me, "do you really think we need a star fruit to be connected to each other? Don't you think our efforts, the belief in our hearts…isn't that quite enough?"

My smile faded. "I just…thought that it might…be nice. It would make me happy to know that we were still connected, if our hearts were to somehow fail on us."

"If it brings you happiness," he murmured, brushing a hand along my cheek, "then I'll gladly indulge you."

I pushed my hands out, trying to give the star fruit to Riku, but he shook his head.

"You take first bite," he said with a sly smile, folding his arms to make it clear he wasn't going to take anything.

My eyes lay on the fruit for a moment. I'd never actually eaten one of these fruits, the stories that Riku told me always making me hesitate. Besides, if I were to eat one, I would want to share it. And now I had that person that I could eat it with. So I might as well just take a bite and get it over with. What terrible thing could happen from eating a star-shaped fruit?

As soon as the first juicy bite was in my mouth, though, Riku's hand came around my face and pulled me to him, pressing our lips together. His tongue pressed against my mouth and I couldn't help but let him find his way in. The fruit fell from my hands as my body went weak in his hold and his tongue found the piece that I had bitten off. Somehow, as though he had done this many times before, he managed to pull the fruit back to him and he took half of it into his own mouth, finally pulling away as we both swallowed our separate pieces.

I didn't feel anything after swallowing, but what I did feel was my racing heart, and the heat of Riku's hands on either side of my face. And I didn't hesitate to pull him right back into the kiss. It was clumsy and I really had no idea what I was supposed to do, but Riku's arms came around my waist and he pulled me into him, leading me through. As far as I knew neither of us had ever kissed someone, but Riku seemed to know exactly how our bodies would fit together perfectly, how our tongues would slide against each other to send just the right jolts down my body, making my legs weak and my heart skip more than a few beats.

Riku smiled against my lips as we pulled away for a breath, giving a small chuckle.

"I've missed you," he said softly. I didn't know if he meant missed me in the past three weeks, or in the past year, but I didn't care as long as he had his arms around me and we were here together. Because I had longed for him, too. Here with him, it was complete. Nothing was missing.

Suddenly Riku's warm hand found the hem of my shirt and slipped beneath it, shocking the nerves there as he came in for another kiss. His fingers explored along my back and waist, finding my stomach at one point before lifting the shirt further up. It was then that I remembered we were completely alone on the island. There was no one to interrupt us. Which just so happened to be quite fine with me.

I let Riku lift my shirt all the way off my head, and as his mouth reached for the sensitive skin of my neck my hands moved for his shirt, and easily slipped it off. Our bare skin seemed to tingle as it slid together, our hands finding places we had never knew of before. Riku's body was toned and beneath the soft skin was all that hard muscle, but he had those places where my fingers lingered just for the feel, like the way his shoulder blades moved as he found new places on my own body. At the moment they seemed to be enjoying my waist, and I gave a small shiver as they slipped underneath the waistband of my pants, trailing along the bones of my hips.

"Is it…alright?" Riku murmured against my skin as he placed another kiss on my neck, making my legs even weaker. "Can I keep going?"

For a moment my voice seemed stuck in my throat, but I managed a quick nod. It wasn't until he had brought me to the ground when I finally managed to mumble a quick "yes" through my trembling lips. Before taking it much further, though, Riku moved his mouth down, trailing his tongue along the fine edge of my collar bone. My body tensed as the movement of his tongue sent warmth and pleasure coursing through my limbs.

"If you want, I'll stop," he said, despite his actions making it clear that even so, he really didn't want to just quit in the middle.

"It's fine," I said, pulling Riku's head up so I could look him right in the eye as I smiled. "I want it as much as you," I assured him, pulling him down for another one of my clumsy kisses. His silver hair tickled my face and swirled in with mine on my forehead. It was so soft, and I reached up to run my hands through it, successfully messing it up quite a bit. I giggled at his new hairstyle and stole one last kiss before freeing him to let him do what he pleased.

His hands moved back down to my shorts, taking their time unzipping. At first he only slipped his hand inside, fondling the most sensitive part of my whole body. His touch made me give a great tremor and my hand clasped onto the edge of the crate, needing some way to release the tension trying to clench around my whole body.

"Sora?" Riku whispered, snapping his head up and pausing.

"It feels…so weird," I huffed.

"Are you sure you want this?" Riku began to remove his hand, but I grabbed it and forced it back down to where it was, pulling a moan from myself as his fingers clenched slightly around me. My hand moved from the crate to his shoulder, pulling myself up to him. He released a small gasp, but I didn't let him go.

"Weird doesn't mean bad," I muttered between my breaths, the warmth in my limbs growing as Riku finally decided to resume. My grip on him didn't lessen any. If anything it got tighter, feeling all of the blood in my body heat up in my veins. But before all that heat reached its climax, Riku let go of me and removed his hand.

Instead he moved it back to the edge of my pants and slid them down, letting all of the musty air in the shack hit my body full on. His eyes took in every inch of me, and I buried my face in his shoulder to hide the rising blush on my face. But he pushed me back, pressing me against the ground as he moved down my body until his shoulders pressed against the inside of my thighs.

He sucked lightly at the skin just below my navel, making me squirm with anticipation and buck my hips impatiently. A low chuckle reverberated up from where his mouth rested, until finally it slipped over my hardened member. My back arched as he sucked and let his teeth scrape along the tender skin, sending fire through my body. I grabbed fistfuls of his hair, pulling him down and trying to send him the message that it wasn't enough yet, I wasn't there.

"Someone's a little needy," Riku cooed, dragging his tongue down my length, but pulled away and replaced his mouth with his hand before I could finish.

"Riku," I moaned in discomfort, grabbing at his shoulders again.

"Not yet," he muttered as he placed more kiss marks along my torso, sucking on the skin before biting down and leaving the red splotch. "You wanted our fates entwined, right?" he said as his mouth reached my chest. "I won't let you go until we can both come together."

His hand tightened a fraction on me, rubbing against it as his lips came against the first expectant mound on my chest. A hand flew to my mouth to muffle the moans that wanted to escape as he continued to play with my body, all the while pushing me closer and closer while never allowing the climax to be reached.

Finally his hand released me, but immediately moved down and found the entrance there, pushing the first finger in. A loud moan slipped between my fingers, echoing around the low ceiling of the shack. Far beyond our labored breathed crashed the ocean against the beach, and somehow through everything that was flowing through me, that simple sound calmed me. I relaxed, and released my tight fingers from my lips. A second finger slipped inside me, and I clenched my muscles, but I didn't fight any of it.

After stretching me with a third finger and successfully making my chest look like a pale night sky with pink galaxies spinning across it, Riku's hands slid to my hips.

"Can you lift up a bit?" he murmured, and I obeyed.

His hard member pressed against me. Before it was inside, though, I wrapped my arms around Riku's neck and pulled him down to me, feeling his nose press against my shoulder. As only a small payback for what he'd given me, I placed a small kiss mark just where the pulse beat rapidly in his neck. It was a spot that not even his high-collared vest could hide.

"Riku," I whispered, barely getting his name out before he pushed inside of me and it was drowned by a great cry of pleasure echoing straight up from my erection.

There was a flash of pain when all of him was inside of me, causing my grip around him to tighten and my fingernails to dig into his back. But as he moved, the pleasure dampened the pain and soon I had completely forgotten about it. Together our voices mixed in the salty air, calling out for each other and releasing the cries of pleasure as this time we both reached for the limit.

And just as Riku had wanted, with a load cry of his name I hit my climax at the same time feeling something tingle against my spine while Riku rode out his own, panting against my slick skin.

He moved to pull out of me, but I held him close, not allowing him to quite yet.

"Wait…" My voice came out hoarse and softer than a whisper, but Riku seemed to hear.

"Isn't it uncomfortable?" he muttered nervously, body rigid beneath my fingers.

"Yes," I said truthfully, "but it's wonderful."

He gave a small, relieved laugh and managed to get my face out of his hair to give me a gingerly placed kiss on the lips. It seemed this was the kiss he had been planning to place back on the small island offshore, the kind that had a sense of being unsure yet still giving all of the love that he contained in his heart.

"I love you, Riku," I said, finally allowing him to pull out.

He laid down next to me, grabbing the cloth from beside the crate and throwing it over us both, covering us head to toe. Muscled arms wound around my waist and pulled me into him, resting my head in the small crook between his neck and shoulder. A nose ruffled through my hair, and I felt his tender lips give my head a kiss. Smiling, I snuggled into his warmth, resting my hands against his chest and spotting the small mark that I had left him earlier.

"I love you, too, Sora."


End file.
